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THINK, MAKE, CHECK...it is that simple and it is profoundly effective…great user experience can be achieved at start-up speed!
I recently attended a LUXi, the Lean User Experience Intensive facilitated by Lane Halley & Josh Seiden of LUXr. The 2-day, hands-on, workshop is designed to teach entrepreneurs how they can achieve "predictable, high-quality, high-velocity user experience outcomes" using Lean UX Principals and I am really excited to share what I learned.
The traditional user experience process is normally long and expensive and that makes it challenging for startups to g

Last week, I installed a great browser extension, ColorZilla, and have been using it extensively because it saves me a lot of time. ColorZilla is a feature rich extension for web designers. Here are some of my favorite features:
Get a color reading of anything in your browser.
Easily copy RGB or Hexadecimal color you selected to any other application
Tweak the color you selected using the built in color palette browser.
Enlarge pages with zoom feature so it is easier for you to sample the color
Here are instructions on how to download, install, and use Colorzilla Firefox exten

I have recently discovered Palette Grabber, a really neat Firefox extension for web designers that grabs all the colors used on a website and exports them to "color palette" file that can then be used in a wide range of image editing applications.Â Â This tool makes it really easy to see what color combinations work together and tweak them for your own designs.
Palette Grabber is a free download and works with any version of Firefox.Â Â It supports Photoshop, Flash, PaintShop Pro, GIMP, Adobe Fireworks, and Mac OS X Color Picker palette formats.
Here are instructions on how to do

Sifting through the mass amounts of articles I receive each day, I occasionally find some amazing little gems that can really help you learn new skills or improve your efficiency. Here I share 5 of my most recent finds. Enjoy them now or keep them in mind for future use.
Thank You Notes 101
Thank you notes are just as important in business as they are in your personal life. But when is it appropriate to send a thank you note? Should it be handwritten? What should you say? All these questions and more are answered in this informative post from thesimpledollar.com.
Crash Course on Photoshop

There are so many great articles that can really teach you a thing or two - but unfortunately they seem to be lost amongst numerous other "less-meaty" ones. Here are 5 recent postings that may help you do your job or run your business more effectively.
How to Kill CSS Bugs
Have you ever been frustrated because your CSS layouts are rendering differently between browsers? Or are you still trying to figure out how to achieve a certain look with CSS? This Noupe article covers more than 20 fixes for issues relating to fixing IE bug, positioning block elements, creating columns & tables, work

Want to work faster, smarter & with style? Check out these 5 articles that reveal some tricks of the trade.
Email Spring Cleaning
If the IT department is constantly asking you to free up space in your Outlook account, you need this tool. Windows users can use the Outlook Attachment remover to detach documents currently attached to emails in your inbox and offload them to your hard drive. Even better, you can specify which document type and sizes.
Attention all SEM (Search Engine Marketing) workers
Want to get an idea of your competitors' link building strategy, understand what people

Design, usability, functionality, and optimization...that is what we who work on the Web should be about...lets check out what the Google team has to say about it.
Here is a list of principles that all Google website designers use as a guide. This list came from Google's User Experience (UX) group that is responsible for Google's user interface design, visual design, user research, web development, and user interface writing.
1. Focus on peopleâ€”their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and att

Looking for meaty, practical articles that will help to improve your work performance? These 5 links provide some amazing tips, tricks and tools.
Do Business with Style
Are you a small business owner that could use professional looking designs for your presentations, letterheads, invoices, or business cards? Microsoft has published a number of gorgeous templates for its Office 2007 package (older versions may also work for some of the designs). You can choose from 6 different designs and 9 customer colors to create a professional looking template that matches your companyâ€™s style. B

I often talk on the subject of website usability and the importance of designing your web pages with your user in mind.
In the blink of an eye, web surfers make their judgmentsâ€¦they instantly judge your websiteâ€™s "visual appeal." If your website is appealing they will look further, if it is appealing and easy to navigate and readâ€¦you will have the chance to build trust with your reader and only then can you influence them to take the action that you want â€¦whether it is to click on your ad, call you for a consultation, or just simply come back.
Here are some tool

With so many web sites out there, how can your make yours stand out? One way is by adding voice to your website.
A human voice adds a personal touch to your website and allows you to connect to your customer and build trust faster. Also, according to mywebsitetalks.com, "The human voice has overwhelming sales appeal, twice as much selling power as simple text."
Where to Add Your Voice
Homepage - As soon as someone enters your website, you can welcome them and direct them to an action....i.e. subscribe to our newsletter, try our new product, get a free sample.
Testimonials